Pub crawl

Day two or R’s visit and we headed down to the tourist mecca that is Fisherman’s Wharf.

To get there involved a cable car ride, something I insisted R try, since one cannot come to SF and not ride the rails at least once. Maybe it’s the boy in me but I defy anyone not to hang off the side of a trolley car run with 100 year old technology heading down a 45 degree slope and not feel a thrill. I imagine steam train enthusiasts get the same sort of feeling but we were better dressed and more socially functional.

While we were waiting in the (long) queue to get on the cable cars we met up with a trio of West Country boys who were in the line in front of us. They were in good spirits and explained that they were long time tourists here; every year landing on the east coast and driving across the country to get to San Francisco via various friends.

However, be careful of whom you talk too. One turned out to be a bit nutty, telling us how Jesus had cured his kidney disease and how he longed to move out here permanently if only god would call him. Nice chap, but nuttier than squirrel droppings in some respects.

Now basically San Franciscans seem to have decided to concentrate all the tourists in one place, either to avoid confrontation with the locals or possibly in the hope that Al-Qaeda will set off a truck bomb and just get grockles.

So we wandered among the tourists, many of whom were dressed as thought the world was blind and spoke as thought the rest were deaf. We saw the sea lions (smelly but fun) and old ships tied up on the wharf before heading off to an official pub crawl.

An official pub crawl seems like a contradiction in terms. Usually pub crawls are impromptu events; a gang of mates getting together and painting the town red, or at least an interesting shade of diced carrot.

Here you got a wrist band which gave you reduced price drinks in various bars. After following the pack to a succession of increasingly crowded bars we decided we were too old for this stuff and headed to my local for a final pint before bed. Tomorrow R had to be off home and I had a major conference to prepare for.

Boys are back in town

Good news this weekend; R, my oldest friend from university is in town. He’s a BSD (big swinging dick) in the city and has been doing big financial things in New York all week before heading over to SF for a weekend’s R&R prior to heading back to London.

R’s been a mate ever since I showed his spotty first year incarnation to his room in halls of residence. For the record I was a spotty second year at the time. But we bonded over mutual liking of Warren Zevon, drinking stunning amounts of whatever was available (including my home brew which I’m sure chemical weapons manufacturers around the world would love to get their hands on) and a belief in the fundamentals, if not the practice, of socialism.

Well, we’ve both passed a lot of water since then and both of us have swelled in body and slightly in mind but have remained firm friends. He’s helped me with my relationship woes and I danced at his wedding and now am doing what I can for the divorce while his wife dances on his heart with her stylish yet affordable boots.

So I determined that the weekend was going to be about fun and after he turned up at the house (in a Bentley no less) I dumped his bags and we went out on the town. A dinner of Kobe beef at an expensive restaurant was followed by hooking up with an interesting lass who led us to a karaoke bar to meet her friends.

It was rather a fun evening, but I broke the cardinal rule of karaoke, or rather the two cardinal rules. First off, never sing a song you really like. Let’s face it, to get up in front of a room of strangers and belt out a tune you’ve got to be fairly wankered and so you’re not going to be on your best form.

However, deep down you know you’re never going to be able to listen to the track you chose without hearing your performance in the brain’s internal jukebox so never, never pick a song you like. I broke this and sang an old Frank Sinatra favourite ‘One for my baby’, which sums up so many evenings in dive bars with friends.

Quite frankly I died on my arse. Flat singing, mumbled lyrics and less skill at following the tune than Mark Thatcher’s ability to follow a simple road map. It was a painful performance that would have had my old choirmaster stabbing pencils into his ears to avoid hearing.

The second rule of karaoke is always choose something the audience can sing along to. As R pointed out, picking a popular classic like ‘American Pie’ means the audience will join in and hopefully drown out the garbage coming out of your mouth. Given that most of the people in the bar weren’t even glints in the milkman’s eye when Old Blue Eyes was crooning was, in retrospect, a mistake.

Afterwards we fell into a cab and headed home to a dubious night’s sleep. R and I haven’t shared a room in years (he has a lovely four bedroom place in London) and I’d forgotten what his snoring was like. Hearing the volcanic rumblings from the sleeping bag at the foot of the bed woke me up at 4am and as soon as I find a place to host the sound file I’ll post it. Now I know I snore on occasion too but this was really something.

Dating etiquette

Nothing makes you feel like a stranger in a strange land like dating.

Dating is a minefield no matter where you are in the world. Behaviour that seems normal when you were growing up would get you imprisoned (Saudi Arabia), slapped (certain parts of mid-west America), or considered a wuss or suspected homosexual for not trying hard enough (Italy).

I’ve finally got down to some serious dating over here and the results have been confusing to say the least. The dates themselves have been very pleasant, laughter was plentiful, eye contact used sparingly but with effect and some socially acceptable arm stoking and the like exchanged.

But the follow up is the confusing bit. My view is that you have a window of about 48 hours at most to get back in contact with either an “Excellent night, now are you fixed for next Thursday” or a “You’re a lovely person but…”

However those rules don’t seem to apply over here. Call me Mr Picky (and some do) but a delay of five days either says “Not that keen but you’re a good backup in case Sven, the Swedish biker, doesn’t learn to commit” or “I’m just not that into you.”

Not so it seems. Instead there is a measure of coolness in getting back in contact that seems to be used of an indicator of how busy, and therefore important, you are. It’s very confusing.

Oh for the days of primary school. You knew where you were then. Either you held hands at playtime and sent letters emblazoned with hearts and the eponymous SWALK (sealed with a loving kiss – or more accurately a chocolaty tongue from one too many fun sized Mars bars) or you pointedly ignored each other and got kicked in the shins occasionally.

Even my clubbing days were easier than this. You went out with a bunch of mates, danced for six hours straight with a variety of women to brain-numbingly loud techno or happy house while altering your internal body chemistry. You then saw who you woke up with the next morning, and after working out if you’d actually done anything, agreed to meet up later. Sounds hit or miss but it was good for some very nice relationships.

But no, now we’re adults and it seems politics has to be key to relationships. I can’t help feeling the world would be a much happier place if we all dropped our inhibitions and were honest with each other.

To tea, or not to tea

As regular readers will know I have been constantly deprecatory of the ability of our American cousins to make a good cup of tea.

Well, if every force has an equal and opposite reaction then Samovar is the opposite to the warm cup of water and Lipton’s ‘tea’ bag that constitutes most American attempts at a good brew up.

Samovar is a place that not only takes its tea seriously, but takes it way too seriously. How can one take tea too seriously the connoisseurs among you may question? Well charging $65 for a one person pot is one example – no tea is that good I’m afraid. Things can only be so good and charging more for something doesn’t automatically make it better (California’s wine merchants please take note).

But what really cracked me and my tea drinking partner up was the descriptions of the tea itself. Now these were necessary, since I’d not heard of some of the more obscure Oolongs and herbal mixes, some of which are unique to the tea house itself. But describing Earl Grey as ‘zesty’ and ‘vibrantly exciting’ is to stretch the truth like Jade Goody’s hipsters.

Earl Grey is not an exciting tea. As my drinking partner pointed out it tastes like a cross between your granny’s perfume sachet and potpourri. It’s the tea equivalent of Madonna; occasionally likeable but by in large over-hyped and underperforming.

That said the teas we chose were excellent. My oolong was perfectly prepared and premoistened with honey to add sweetness to a strong black brew, while my partner’s cuppa was equally well prepared. Add in a delicious warm salmon quiche and cheeky birds hopping closer for nibbles and it was a very enjoyable afternoon.

Tofu

As I’ve mentioned before vegetarianism and I have a hands-off relationship, much like Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise I imagine.

So it was some trepidation last night that I sampled the bowl of warm tofu placed in front of me. I was out to dinner and this place had come highly recommended as good Japanese fare. As we were both sushi junkies then it looked like an excellent choice and tofu is something of a speciality of the house.

Now I think tofu always caused a mental problem because the stuff you buy in Britain seems to be about as tasty as pencil erasers, with roughly the same consistency. Either that or it’s so rubbery you might as well be chewing badly cured Pirellis.

I’d always assumed its invention was due to famine and soy milk, which is to real milk what the Sinclair C5 is to an Aston Martin, was the only thing available.

But this bowl was a revelation. It was soft and creamy, with a delicious sauce that managed to be both sweet and yet subtly savoury. Add into that the great company and live scallops with soy and wasabi and it was a meal to remember.

Bloggers about

Another old friend from the UK came into the office today. J and I worked together a decade ago and while I left the dark world of PR he has climbed the greasy pole and is now a bigwig in-house guy.

So when his PR company suggested a meeting I jumped at the chance. We dispensed with the work side of the briefing in half an hour and then devoted the rest of the time to catching up. It’s fun to see where everyone is and compare war stories and as he used to work with Si I took him down to meet her.

It was Si’s last day and so we chilled out at the conference awards dinner before she had to get a red eye back to New York. Then she’d secured up passes to the VIP post-awards party and so we headed off to a sweaty nightclub in the heart of SOMA.

J and I discussed the things men do after the second vodka and tonic (marriage, life and the eventual heat death of the universe) and then as we were making our way through the crowd I ran into a blogger I’ve been reading for years, Girl with a One Track Mind.

Now I may not agree with everything she writes but she turns a great turn of phrase and deserves credit for having the guts to write about topics not usually covered before the internet, and for getting a book deal out of it and not turning in the usual piece of drivel bloggers have been known to do in such circumstances. I wrote a couple of pieces about her, particularly after she was disgracefully outed and it was good to meet briefly in the flesh before she was swarmed by fans.

Miss Fabulous

Tuesday and the welcome news that Si was over from New York for a conference.

Great to see her again and we had a high old time crashing the MySpace afterparty. Was a lot of fun and I met some interesting people.

It’s customary at these parties to have a ‘celebrity’ DJ, and this one was no exception. Samantha Ronson, Lindsay Lohan’s girlfriend was taking the stand and to my surprise she actually played some records.

To explain, the rise of the celebrity DJ has nothing to do with a sudden interest in music among the glitterati and everything to do with technology. So called DJs like Peaches Geldof, Kate Lawler and similar oxygen thieves buy in premixed dance sessions on a laptop, come onto the podium, press a button and then preen for the cameras/drink themselves insensible/try and get off with rich footballers.

Ronson did actually play and mix her own records, and deserves credit for doing so. The only problem was she wasn’t very good at it. Some of her mixes were jerkier than a Thunderbirds puppet and while scratching is a good skill for a DJ did she have to do it every single track?

Anyway, a good night was had by all and we decamped to taxis and headed home. Great to have Si back, she’s the life and soul of a party.

Anger

Dragged myself down to the Formula One this morning but after the massively disappointing race last tie I wasn’t keen.

It didn’t help that the venue was in chaos. The big screen TV had gone down, and there was no food since the cook had been taken to hospital – probably with food poisoning if his bacon is anything to go by. Still, had a couple of Virgin Mary's (on the advice of my doctor in France) and settled down to watch.

As it turns out the race was spectacular. Lewis lost the lead early on but kept fighting all the way, staying within a couple of seconds of Kimi for the whole race. Then a few laps before the end the rain came down and Lewis showed hat a rainmeister he is. The cars were driving very skittishly and the lead swapped places three times before Kimi crashed out and Lewis clinched it.

But then the news came through that he’d been docked 25 seconds! The room was in uproar. To explain Lewis had been forced off the road by Kimi and cut the corner of a chicane to get back onto the track an had gained the lead. As the rules dictate he then eased off and let Kimi pass so no advantage was gained before repassing on the next corner.

If the race authorities are going to let Ferrari get away with Murder (Kimi wasn’t even bothering to make some corners and was using runoff tracks regularly once the rain started) then I wonder if F1 is going to remain worth watching.

Muzzy week

Sorry for the lack of posts but have been doing an intensive anti-histamine routine to get rid of the mossie bites.

I don’t know what weird quirk of personal biochemistry has made me so susceptible to bites but it’s a pain in the arse. I get a cone of raised flesh about the size of a fifty pence or dollar coin which itches incessantly. Scratch one and the whole thing goes nuclear.

They’re down to minor irritations now but the anti-histamine regimen has left me firing on three cylinders and with the tendency to drift off at odd moments. I’m cutting down the dose tomorrow all things being equal but it has not been a pleasant week.

Sausalito art festival part two

Got to the festival a bit late today, as I felt a lie in wasn't out of order.

Not the smartest of moves, since I woke up covered in mossie bites. Somehow I'd got it into my head that mosquitoes weren't going to be a problem here but woke up with nine bites, including one on the heel of my right hand from one bloody-minded one who obviously fancied a challenge.

Anyway, dosed up on antihistamine and got to the stage with 10 minutes to spare. No chance of a good seat by that time so stood up front and slapped on the factor 30. No matter, Richard Thompson was well worth it. He's not known as Britain's finest acoustic guitarist for nothing and he didn't disappoint.

Reading back over yesterday's post I was possibly a little harsh on Al Stewart but is guitar work is to Thompson's what Kitty is to a Siberian tiger. Thompson is still blindingly quick on the frets, takes chords from all musical styles and blends them into music that ranges from angry to very, very funny.

He's also got the banter, opening by remarking that the crowd looked very happy, just the right side of smug, and recounting earlier trips to Sausalito with the hope that the waitresses in the Hotel Triton were still as accommodating.

But the music was the thing, and for 90 minutes he played a good mix of new stuff and the classics. All in all a masterful performance.

To top the day off I wandered round the fair and got caught by a sculpture. I don't really collect art but every once in a while I'll see something and just become entranced. Some hard negotiation followed but I'm now a proud owner of a Lockwood carving that overlooks the bed.

Then it was off to J's for a barbecue. He and his wife have a lovely apartment overlooking the bay and we sat on the deck, drank wine and ate good food before catching the bus home. Work is going to be a trial tomorrow.